Living With Ghosts

by Kari Sperring

  “Urien told me,” Yvelliane said. “I tried to have Quenfrida sent away, but the council blocked me. While you . . .” She kissed his cheek. “You did the right thing straight away. And I suspected you for it.”

  He had waited so long for this, for her to trust him. He was not sure he wanted it at this price, for Yvelliane to be so broken. He said, “That doesn’t matter.”

  “It ought to.” She raised her head. “Thierry, I . . .”

  “But it doesn’t, not so long as you love me.” He could not find the words. “That’s the important bit. The rest is just trappings. I love you. That’s what it comes down to.”

  “I don’t deserve you.” There was something in her face he did not understand. She kissed him again, this time on the lips, and then stood. “I have to go. It’s nearly dusk. I’m sorry. There’s so much I have to do by tomorrow evening.”

  “You will come back?”

  “Of course I will.” But this time, her smile did not reach her eyes. “Sleep well, love.” And, gathering her cloak from the floor, she was gone.

  He stared after her for long, quiet minutes, caught between joy and fear. Something was wrong, and he had no way at all of discovering what.

  “Your city will fall,” Urien had said, calm eyes on her. “We may be able to protect it somewhat, but the forces you must deflect are not trivial. And protection is not cure.” She had held silent, watching him. His expression had given nothing away; he had too long studied pragmatic control.

  That should have been something they held in common. But Yvelliane had begun finally to question her own pragmatism. There are other fanaticisms than those of flame and thunder.

  “Gracielis de Varnaq,” Urien had said, “is no match for the woman Quenfrida. And she has the additional aid of Prince Kenan. It is likely that in a trial between them, Gracielis undarios will go under.”

  “So he’s told me.” Yvelliane had sighed. “I tried to have her removed, but the times aren’t right. To offer such an insult to Tarnaroq . . .”

  “Peace.” Urien had raised a hand. “Granted our present strengths, no gain will be made by expelling her from Merafi. The time for that is long past.” Yvelliane had looked down. “Her working must be undone, Yviane Allandur, and the old bonds remade.”

  Her mouth had been dry, asking, “How?” His answer had been to repeat to her the old tale of Yestinn Allandur, who had enacted a sacrifice to bind the old powers. Orcandrin blood to seal Allandurin rule; and the overthrow of the old clan ways had followed. He had moved his capital from remote Skarholm, too close to the places of greatest power, and come south to found Merafi. The great city built where the old powers were weakest, where stone met wave, where two waters, salt and fresh, mingled. And the old power had slept, until ambitious Kenan disturbed it and found in Quenfrida a tutor to learn to use it.

  Kenan, of course, had probably wanted no more than to free Lunedith from dependence upon Gran’ Romagne. It would be Quenfrida who had initiated the attempt to destroy Gran’ Romagne’s heart-city totally.

  Now Urien—the Lunedithin—and Gracielis—the Tarnaroqui—seemed to wish to lay this force again to sleep. Yvelliane had listened without comment. But in the back of her mind, a suspicion had begun to rise.

  To impose that ancient pact, Yestinn had made a blood sacrifice. Kenan in turn had shed blood—Allandurin and his own—to create this disturbance. To reimpose quiescence . . .

  Urien had perhaps detected where her thoughts had led her. He had paused and said, “The first compact—Yestinn’s—was made in Lunedith. But it is for Merafi that we now work. It is thus better that we make our new compact here, sealing Merafi once again against that which has entered it unwholesomely.”

  Yvelliane had made no great study of the old beliefs regarding powers and balances. The river priests pursued such matters; and to the south the Tarnaroqui struggled to use what arcane fragments they possessed to their own aggrandizement. She had frowned and said, “Simplicity suggests Kenan must die—at Allandurin hands?—to reimpose calm. But that option doesn’t seem to take care of Quenfrida. And Kenan’s hardly likely to cooperate.”

  “Gaverne Orcandros—the first sacrifice—was unwilling.” Urien said, levelly.

  “Hmm.” Yvelliane steepled her fingers. “But Kenan is linked to this whatever-it-is in a way Gaverne wasn’t. He’s on its side . . . I wonder if killing him might not tend to feed, rather than pacify it?”

  “Indeed.”

  “In which case, you need a different victim . . . Merafi isn’t Orcandrin territory, anyway. It belongs to my family, if anyone . . .” She raised her eyes to meet his. “Not Firomelle. You can’t ask this of her.”

  “No.” Urien was not, in general, demonstrative, but he had risen and laid his hands over hers. “Yviane Allandur, do you know what I must now ask you?”

  She had run cold. She swallowed, forcing herself to think logically. If all this superstition was true—and Urien certainly was not given to irrationalities—then the situation was desperate. Urien would not—ever—make such a suggestion to her otherwise.

  And Firomelle was dying, and Yvelliane had already surrendered her brother, her marriage, her private self, to Firomelle’s service.

  Firomelle’s, not Merafi’s. Viewed too clearly in this moment, she could see how much her devotion to duty had derived from her love for the queen. Yvelliane had looked at Urien and said, “Will it work?”

  “An Allandurin sacrifice?”

  She nodded.

  “Granted the necessary conditions, I believe so.”

  “And Firomelle?”

  “I know not if her illness is a part of this. Her city may be redeemed, but the sacrifice may not renew her. Forgive me.”

  “I just wondered.” Firomelle’s greatest concern was the survival of her city against internal and external threat. Yvelliane had always supported her in that. She could not fail her now, however much she might want to retreat, to hide, to go to Thiercelin and beg his forgiveness. She was calm, suddenly. Her duty was clear. She had looked at Urien, and said, “My blood is Allandurin. You’re asking me to die to save Merafi.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” and she straightened. “I won’t do it just for Merafi. But for Merafi and Firomelle . . . Yes, Urien, I will lay down life to that end.” Her words had been formal, but her sense of relief had not been.

  Urien had risen and offered her a salute, Lunedithin fashion. Service, honor, reverence. She had looked down, suddenly awkward, and busied herself with the tidal calculations. She had let Urien draw her, finally, out from her world of calm rationality, and into the twilight of her city’s past.

  Valdarrien came back around an hour after dark, more like a ghost of himself than he had ever been. Gracielis met him on the stairwell and stepped back. Valdarrien passed him without a word and went into Thiercelin’s room. Gracielis trailed him, wary, uncertain. Thiercelin was still awake and reading. Yvelliane’s visit had reawakened something, some strength within him. Gracielis did not know whether to be glad or to weep at that. He could not bear to spoil the hope he saw in Thiercelin’s face, yet he shivered from the pain that was to come.

  Valdarrien sat down on the end of the bed and put his face in his hands. They were bloody. He said, “She’s dead, Thierry. I went to her embassy. I saw her . . . Does Urien know?”

  “Yes,” Gracielis said.

  “Her hair still smells the same,” Valdarrien said. “She promised to stay with me, but she broke her word.” He looked across at Thiercelin. “Is this all we’ll ever have?”

  Thiercelin said, “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Valdin.”

  “Yes . . .” Valdarrien rose and went to the window.

  “Perhaps being dead was better, after all . . . She didn’t deserve what Kenan did to her.” He stared out into the fading light, then shut the casement with a bang. “I told him. I doubt he understood.”

  “Monseigneur,” said Gracielis, “what has befallen Kenan?”

  “Is
it your business?” But there was no real defiance in Valdarrien’s voice. “He’s not important.”

  Thiercelin said, “He’s a member of a foreign royal house, Valdin. The consequences . . .”

  “May go drown!” Valdarrien turned. “Dead men can’t be punished, Thierry. And with Merafi in this state, who’s to say how he died. There are so many dangers in the streets.”

  “So you killed him,” Gracielis said.

  “Yes.” Valdarrien wandered around the room. “And I told Urien so on my way upstairs, so honor is satisfied.” Gracielis said nothing. “I’ve already had the lecture regarding my conduct. I don’t choose to submit to another.” He paused by the hearth, drumming his fingers on the mantel. “It was necessary, killing him. I enjoyed it.”

  Gracielis looked at his own hands. He could hear the strain in Valdarrien’s voice, underneath the bravado. The dead could feel. Feelings, above all else, are what held them close to the living. He wondered if Kenan’s ghost would rise tonight, amid the myriad shadows, to continue his work against Merafi. Perhaps this time it would be Quenfrida who would be haunted.

  The room was quiet save for Valdarrien’s tapping fingers. Kenan was dead. His powers had been neither blocked nor bound; his sudden absence would leave space for worse things. Gracielis rose and bowed to Thiercelin. “Excuse me, monseigneur, but I should talk to Urien.”

  “Of course.” Thiercelin hesitated then added, “Graelis?”

  “Yes?”

  “What we were talking about earlier—before Yviane visited—will that happen now?”

  “I don’t know,” Gracielis said. He looked across at Valdarrien, then back to Thiercelin. “I hope not.”

  “Yes.” Thiercelin looked down.

  Gracielis went out, closing the door. From behind it, he heard Valdarrien start to speak.

  Urien was in the kitchen. Gracielis hesitated on the threshold. Urien turned, and his face held no emotion. Controlled calm, akin to Iareth’s calm, which Kenan had shattered . . . Gracielis came into the room and said, in Lunedithin, “I grieve for you.”

  “I thank you.” The tone did not invite further comment. Gracielis sat. Urien finished what he was doing and came back to the table, wiping his hands. “I have the calculations from Yviane Allandur. We have a day.” There was a sheaf of papers on the clean end of the board, made out in Yvelliane’s precise hand. Gracielis skimmed them. One day. Tomorrow night, both moons would be full and their cycles would be in alignment. The pull upon the river would be at its strongest. High tide. Highest tide, and Quenfrida’s control over what she had awakened would be at its weakest.

  Gracielis frowned. Urien planned to use force against force, turning the waters back upon their awakener, and sever their bindings to her, simultaneously laying down new bindings of his own. Hard enough with both Kenan and Quenfrida to face. But with Kenan gone, the powers were already half out of control. Gracielis shivered, seeing his death plainly in the neat script before him. He was not Quenfrida’s equal and he must turn this tide upon her. He looked up at Urien and said, in his native Tarnaroqui, “I can’t.” And then, in Lunedithin, “Forgive me.”

  “There’s to be a sacrifice,” Urien said. “Perhaps you will only have to create a delay.” He paused. “You have your own strengths and your own tie to the river.”

  “None of my seeking.” Gracielis twisted his hair between his fingers. “You mean Valdarrien d’Illandre?” Urien nodded. “His presence isn’t my doing.”

  “I wonder.” Urien sat down opposite, and studied him. “I understand that to become undarios, you must sacrifice a life? Yet you did not do so, and are undarios having instead returned a life that was lost.”

  “Not properly.” Gracielis shivered again at the memory of what he had glimpsed behind Valdarrien.

  “Whatever his nature, you called upon the river force to shape him. It may yet serve you.” Urien hesitated. “And I possess resources of my own, which I lay at your disposal.”

  “Thank you,” Gracielis said. It had come to this, after all. Until now he had not quite believed that he would go through with it. For the first time since the night of Valdarrien’s rebirth, he felt a sudden, desperate longing for Quenfrida.

  Take this from me . . . Chai ela, Quenfrida, I am much in need of you. She had promised him death and turned from him. But she alone in all Merafi would understand this fear that gripped him. He was dimly aware of her, a watchful presence amidst the wilder weight of the river. What would she say if he went to her now and demanded her aid? Would she hold out her killing hands and offer temptation? Without Kenan there would be space beside her. He reached out to her in thought.

  It was cold . . . He swam against a current, heavy water drenching him, and catching, clawing. He shivered, contracting down within himself. Wave, wind, flame, stone, darkness. It was different this time; the waters were unaware of him. He was small enough to pass, gravel in the undertow. Shapes flickered past him, half-drawn. He could feel the city’s walls about him, neither a prison nor a guide. The stones softened, the earth gave way. He gasped, afraid to be pulled into the dark places where the river probed. He surfaced and the air was bright around him, snatching at the water with tiny hands. Quenfrida’s domain, this, sky-hallowed, just as his own blood bound him to stone. She was a wind above the dark waters, turning in on herself to enforce and command. Her daily mind was beyond him. She was withdrawn, entranced in her own necessities. All about her, black clouds formed.

  He might join her and face them down. He might bind himself into the weight of water rising and watch Merafi drown. He would be redeemed in the eyes of his own kind. He had nothing to lose.

  He had promised Thiercelin. Across the light, across the waves, he remembered their hands, which touched, which held. This city was dear to Thiercelin. He had sought to do the best he could to save it. He loved Yvelliane, whom he must lose, and Valdarrien, whom he had tracked beyond death. He had fought to bring Gracielis to this moment. Thiercelin would lose everything.

  There were already too many deaths. Gracielis looked once more into the vortices of Quenfrida’s work, and withdrew.

  Yvelliane would die for Merafi and for the queen she loved.

  Gracielis de Varnaq could not, after all, betray Thiercelin, who stood to lose so very much of what he loved.

  His eyes snapped open. From the other side of the table, Urien watched him. Gracielis lowered his head into his hands. He said, “Two days?”

  “So. The second night from this one.”

  “And the sacrifice?”

  “Is in hand. I have only to arrange for the means.”

  “I see, “ Gracielis said. And then, “Poor Thierry.”

  “If we do not try this, his case is no better,” Urien said.

  “No,” said Gracielis. “But I don’t suppose that knowledge is likely to be much comfort to him.”

  23

  ONE MORE DAY. At dawn, most of southern Merafi was awash in three feet of dirty water. Fog hovered over it, obscuring the view of onlookers in higher places. The old city was being abandoned. Only the river priests hung on in their island tower as the river they had vowed to serve devoured the city. The air was thick and sour tasting. The crack of falling masonry punctuated the sound of rising water. The surface of the water was nearly opaque, filthy with debris. No one knew the death toll. The water had invaded the headquarters of the city watch. Its skeleton staff had fled without their papers. The guard regiments held clear of the city’s core, clinging to the high northern and eastern areas. Between the middle and north channels, fires burned intermittently in the streets. Few people ventured into those streets. The mist creatures grew bolder. Some walked and tore by day. In odd places shattered glass bore testimony to the activities of looters. A handful of residents remained, mainly in the taller buildings, held by stubbornness or plague.

  The west quarter lay still, though the north channel lapped hungrily at the verges of the quay. All those who could had already fled. The remainder moved
with caution and avoided their fellows, waiting for sickness. There was less mist here, but the wind smelled bad and the rain was dark with ash.

  In the aristocrats’ quarter seals began to appear on the high gates of residences. Plague within, do not enter. In the grounds of several, fires blazed, disposing of bodies. One or two stood hollow-windowed and silent.

  By noon Tafarin Morwenedd and his remaining compatriots rode north with their burden of ill tidings. Iareth Yscoithi was ash. Sodden, Kenan’s body mixed with the sand and silt of the estuary.

  In the Far Blays town house, Joyain watched the emptying streets and fought weakness. He could do nothing else now; only wait and try uncertainly to bring comfort to Miraude. Afterward . . . Already in his head he was trying to imagine life in this ghost city.

  The Tarnaroqui embassy remained open, its closed windows shedding light and voices and music. Quenfrida’s protections held it safe, withdrawn from chaos, as she herself was withdrawn from her companions, into the sanctuary of her rooms. Demons woke in her mind. She looked inward, fighting to control and hold them. She pursued Kenan’s failure down avenues of power and wove her own substance into her bindings.

  Valdarrien ventured into the old city and found no consolation in fighting mist creatures. They could not touch him. He could carve them into fragments, but they simply re-formed. He had found Iareth and lost her, and he had forgotten purpose.

  Thiercelin insisted on rising. Urien said nothing. Gracielis implored, sighed, and offered his shoulder. “If all I can do is wait, at least I can do it sitting up,” Thiercelin said. He was waiting for Yvelliane. Gracielis could not bear to watch him, to see his new joy, knowing that it must be transitory. For himself, he did not believe Yvelliane would call again. He could not blame her for that. She would need to cling to what courage she had against what she must face this night.